Gray Static
by pmu
Summary: Edward changed her, gave her eternity but fate was cruel and took him from her when Leah imprinted on him. So she did the one thing she could do for eternity, run but not without Embry Call catching her first and making her feel something - human. *Sequel to White Noise


**Authors Note: Follow up to White Noise however with a surprising twist. This was a big debate I had with myself on writing because I simply do not like Bella, not as a human nor as a vamp. However the way I have written her in this o/s is something I can stomach and feel some what proud about. I hope those of you who love Bella will enjoy this and see the plot as something different and intriguing.**

* * *

All I can do is run but it doesn't seam fast enough. It can't leave behind the emotion inside my dead heart like a forgotten memory.

I chose this life though, with the expectancy to live forever with him. But I don't have him anymore and now I am stuck in this body for eternity without him. This wasn't how it was suppose to happen, this isn't a fairytale ending.

Then again I was just a child when I made that impulsive decision to love a vampire completely and unconditionally and ironically I'm stuck in a never ending life cycle to learn from that mistake. I don't even have the human luxury to forget about him, fade those memories into the back of my head.

Oh no, because a vampire can never forget. Not a single thing.

So for now, I'm just going to run, run as fast as can till I feel nothing or just less of what I do now.

My body collides with an object I'm not ready to face, the warmth of his skin beneath the fur conflicts against my cold marble skin. I close my eyes as I allow my body to be tossed around and hopefully thrown hard enough against a tree to make me numb.

But it doesn't, instead I feel arms wrapped around me and a beating heart pounding against my dead body. I look up at him, ready to scold him but when I find a different pair of eyes peering down at me. I am left feeling completely vulnerable like he can see everything inside my head. Something I would describe once as panic enters me and I fidget while he put me down on my feet.

"Embry.." I say his name and smiles a sheepish smile at me, looking so different then the boy I meet three years ago who told they don't bite when I felt more like a meal entering their "den" after they knew I ran with vampires.

"Still think you vamps are faster?" He asked me, like a broken banter between me and him as he just proved he was able to phase and still catch me before I hit the tree.

"Not really in the mood Embry." I snap back and find myself thankful vampires can't cry.

"What's the matter with you? A thank you would be in order." He fires back and it's like a match being thrown down into my stomach and all I feel is a fiery rage burning within me. "Thank you? For what? For how you dogs can imprint and steal someone away from a person who loved them first!" I scream at him, my hands twitching as I reach for the nearby tree and rip it from the ground. "She never would have looked at him if it wasn't for imprinting!" I need to let this anger out. My body swings around as I let the tree go and it takes down a path of them as it moves in the air.

"Feel better now?" He taunts me and I want to rip those lips off his face.

I move in to attack him, but he is ready for me and it's me who ends up pinned on the ground with him holding me down. My hands dig further into the wet ground as he presses his weight down on me, holding my arms tightly in his grip and his legs keeping mine pushed together.

"You have no idea what Leah has sacrificed to be with him or how hard she fought to not look at him. You are not the only who feels hurt Bella." He voice washes over me and all I can do is look up to his eyes and watch them change color, like a dark cloud shadowing them and how his face looks hollow at the mention of her name.

"You loved her …" I ask him, completely fixed on how he looks right now.

"No… She was just the only one ..." And just like that he stops talking and removes himself from me.

"Bella!" I hear my name being called out and I quickly get up and meet the boy who has been in love with me all along. But he isn't a boy anymore; we have all changed way too much. We have all experienced more then we should regardless of our now forever youthful bodies.

"Jacob." I whisper his name as he comes towards me, his hand clamping down on mine and pulling me into his arms. "Jacob I'm fine. " I tell him, my face buried into his chest. "Don't leave Bella. I know you're hurt right now but there are still people here who love you." He hurriedly tells me and I pull back from his hold knowing where this was going, "I know Jacob but remember when you ran when I got married. Two months, three days and five hours before you crossed back over into La Push and walked on two legs again." I tell him as if it was yesterday.

He looks at me questioning how I could remember that.

"A vampire never forgets." I tell him, "You are my best friend Jacob. Nothing can change that." And he smiles at me.

I turn around expecting to see Embry but he is long gone.

"Did you see where he went?" I look back at Jacob.

"See who?"

"Oh … never mind." I say quickly. And without a doubt I know I need to get the hell out of here and not come back.

* * *

Driving into town makes me nervous, I feel so exposed. Like when people look at me all they see is a weak little girl with no one to love or love her back. But I'm not weak just damaged.

Looking out the window as people cross the street under the red light I spot a familiar face, but I can't wave because so much time has passed and I was no better a friend to her then I was to anyone after Edward came into my world.

A few people have already spotted me though, at the other lights and stops signs. Their index would finger point at me as they try to hide it but I saw it. They would lean over and whisper into the ears of the willing person ready for juicy gossip, but I heard it.

"_Poor Bella, lost her husband to the hands of another woman…. How can she come back after leaving her father without a word…. Look there is the girl who went mad and ran away…" _

"Bella!" And with human grace she waves at me and her smile is bright regardless of the gloomy weather in this small town. I wave back and put on a smile. She motions for me to come over to her and still not ready to face my father I find the next parking space on the town's main road through all the main shops.

Getting out the car I remember to grab my jacket that is useless for me but a must to be seen in public. Slipping it on, I find her waving again at me and the one thing I note is how oddly _good _she smells to me. Fresh an crisp like clean linen from the dryer. I have never experienced this in my new life, every human has smelled the same to me, she did back then too.

But now … it's different.

"Angela." I smile at her and she gives me a meager hug, she has always been shy and respected everyone and their awkwardness and that included my need for space physically and lack of girlyness.

"I haven't seen you in forever." She exhales and I let her lead us into the shop, a coffee shop. "How are you?" and my instincts tell me she is still genuine and not a part of the towns gossip. It's nice to know I have a friend still, a human friend.

"I'm good, just on break and visiting Charlie for the Holidays. How have you been?" I ask her, she looks the same just a bit more mature in the face. Her Asian genes will keep her looking youthful longer than others.

"Same here, just got in yesterday. Well … not visiting Charlie.. but you know, family." She is still Angela, slightly awkward and shy which makes her more appealing then the next girl, she just doesn't know it yet. She grabs hold of my and I quickly jerk it back. I didn't warm them in the car vents and I don't have on gloves… _"Shit." _

"Your hands …" She questions me.

"Cold and cold cream lotion." I lie quickly to her and I doubt she believes me but accepts it. "How about I buy us some coffee, what do you want? And we can just sit and … talk?" I change the subject quickly.

"Sounds good." And there is that soft smile again on her face, "Something pumpkin spice." She adds.

Maybe today will not be so bad after all.

* * *

…

It's been three weeks since I arrived and my father couldn't be happier to have me in his house. Sue had moved in with him while I was gone, she loves him and I see the way he makes her smile. He never made my mom smile like that and I never saw him happy like this with my mom either. Maybe a second chance at love is needed for us Swans.

Sue's relationship with Leah has strained though, she doesn't talk to her and Charlie doesn't understand why completely. I think he knows that Leah is special, like Edward … like me. But doesn't know the details of it all and it's better that way. Outsiders aren't supposed to know, not about the shape shifters and not about the vampires. It is a rule set on both sides that is not to be broken.

So he knows that we are different and leaves it at that.

Leah is still here, with Edward. Sometimes when I'm in the forest I can still smell him but it's different because it's tainted now, **with her.**

Jacob is still angry at me, it's like he is still child sometimes. He doesn't understand why I still left, why I left him without saying goodbye. Truth be told, I have no answer other then I was being selfish because I only wanted to not feel anything and that meant leaving everyone behind and this place.

At least I have Angela, it's been so nice to have her as a friend again in my life. I think she knows I am different as well but hasn't questioned me on it and I am thankful because I would hate to lose her as friend. She was there for me when Jacob ran into us at the coffee shop on my first day back.

"_Nice of you to show up. Forget something?" His voice is unkind and I can see the lines of anger in his face as he scolds me like a child. _

"_Hey Jacob … " I stammer and he just looks at me with hate. He turns around and walks out the shop, I move to get up and go after him, my own anger rising in me._

"_Hey … wait." _

"_I'm done talking to you." _

"_Well I'm not!" _

"_You left Bella."_

"_He left me Jacob! What did you think I would do." I horse out and can my own face scowling at me. "I had to get out of here and you have no right to judge me. You ran away when I told you I was marrying him."_

"_Yeah but I had no one when I left, you had me!" He throws back into my face. _

"_Jacob .. please.." I lower my voice with people approaching, watching him get on his bike. It's no longer a dirt bike but an actual motorcycle. _

_He ignores me and rides off. _

"_Bella are you okay?" Angela comes up behind and I turn around to face her with no tears because vampires can't cry. "Yeah .. nothing time can't help." I lie to her because I know this friendship is over with him. "Don't worry, I'm sure when he cools off he will think more like an adult. He was just in love with you for a long time. " _

"Still here?" His voice catches me off guard. _How the hell did I miss his smell?_ I turn around from the stream, the stream that now separates me from the Cullen's territory and Leah from the pack's land.

"Point?" I swing around to ask him, the length of his body covering the trunk of the tree as he leans back against it. But he doesn't cross his arms, his face isn't turned into a tight smirk. There is no cockiness in his stance to back up his words.

"I guess there is no point." He shrugs his shoulders and moves from the tree towards me. I'm not sure why I didn't notice at first, but I do now. The soft color of gold lingers in his eyes, I don't remember them being this color or maybe I never noticed it before? I was never friends with him and only shared a handful of encounters with him during my time with Jacob … before the wedding … before I even knew Leah.

"What are you looking at?" He shakes me of my thoughts and now I'm forced to focus in on him.

"Your eyes … they are gold."

His body moves and I see it coming but I'm not moving. I'm not sure how to comprehend this or maybe I want him to make me feel something. His fingers pierce into the skin of my upper arms, my back hits the tree and I watch his nose flair and eyes scream pure aggression at me.

"You will not tell anyone!" He screams at me, I thrust myself back at him. My arms break free from his hold and I send him flying off me. I hold my ground and wait for him to come at me again and he does. I hit the tree again and this time it snaps against my back. The only sounds echoing around me are the beat of his heart and the fall of the tree hitting the ground behind me.

"Promise me … " he whispers and if my heart was alive it would have paused, but it doesn't beat. Nothing inside me beats anymore, nothing moves – besides the flow of blood moving inside my tissues to keep me from decaying.

I nod my head at him and he quickly lets go of me. My mind tells me how I should respond but I ignore it and allow something else to happen. I stop trying to comprehend this, I tell my brain to shut down and not analyze this situation. Instead I pretend I'm human and just let an emotion of some kind run through me.

"I'm sorry … I don't mean to hurt you … too hurt you." He tells me and this isn't about me, this is about something else that I am sure. But what I do know is that, in this moment, Embry Call is my reason for staying now.

Because right now he makes me feel … human.

"Embry … let me help you." I ask him, reaching out for his hand like a greedy bastard trying to find more human emotions to devour my body with.

"You asked me if I loved Leah. I told you no. I lied." He tells me so plainly, like a broken record that he never took off repeat. "But she was all I had. There is no home for me at the end of the day, not like you have. So no, I don't think you can help me." His face is full of pain.

"You have a mother who loves you and a pack of brothers."

"You know nothing, always so caught up in your world you fail to see everything else. Just go home leech." His words sting me but I am no longer that weak human girl.

"No." I hiss at him, latching onto his arm with my hand before he can walk away.

"Let me go before I rip that arm off your body."

"You don't scare me. So talk." I threaten him.

"What do you want to hear? My own pack brothers saw the one person I loved imprint on a fucking leech! My own mother hates me because I look just like that man who left her when she told him she was pregnant with me. So I get to remind her everyday of what she doesn't have and why she doesn't have it. Yet she hates that I'm never home because in her fucked up my mind I am all she has even if she hates me because at least I give her something to feel." He screams at me, jerking his arm out of my hold.

"I am you Embry." I tell him, trying to coax him to calm down and just listen to me.

"No you're not." The tips of his fingers snatch at my wrist, jerking me forward, me feet stumbling. The palm of my hand presses against his chest. I can feel it, the thing he has that I don't. A heart beat.

"You are nothing like me Bella Swan." His whispers to me, those words hit me and I have nothing to say back. His eyes fade from that gold and return back to their liquid black. "She told me she would fight it, she would stay with me." Tears slip down his face and it makes me see how his face has matured. Strong bone lines only intensify his eyes, drawing you into the black pools hiding under thick long lashes.

"I was promised forever and now I have it but without him." He studies my face as I tell him this and suddenly my instincts for fight or flight kick in and it's like an itch crawling up my body. His smell is now nauseating and no longer over looked. His touch is like fire on my skin and it burns in an uncomfortable way.

"Embry … I think you're too close." I say lowly, not sure if I want him to hear me or push my limits and see what happens. I flex my fingers against his chest, trying to push away but he holds his ground. He comes in closer and his lips are all I can see now.

"Shut up." He tells me, I barely hear him but I can so clearly see the way his lips move on each word and how I involuntarily make the inside of my mouth wet. My lips part on their own and I feel something I can't explain logically.

His lips touch on mine and a new emotions stirs inside myself, confliction.

He gets bolder, pushing his lips harder and they are like warm liquid against mine. I feel alive for the first time in a long time. His hands find a new spot, fingers twisting in my hair now making me crane my neck and open my mouth to him. His tongue melts inside my mouth, moving against my own tongue. He pulls back but this time it's me who reacts and I push my own mouth back against his to taste it again.

He lets me for a second and then it's over.

He looks over at me and his eyes are almost hollow, was kissing me that bad? Do I disgust him that much?

"Embry .."

"I'm sorry .. I just wanted to feel something." He tells me and then he is gone.

* * *

…

It's been three weeks since I let Embry Call kiss me. I know I could go out and find him but I will not be that girl again but it doesn't stop me from thinking of him.

I told Angela about it, I have no idea why. I'm sure he was using me like I was using him. We both just want to feel something. Maybe it was a stupid notion to think he could be my reason to stay because he made me feel something. Maybe it's time I should go.

It's late, everyone is asleep in the house and I haven't feed since Embry left me standing alone in the forest. I need to eat.

Jumping out my old bedroom window I land gracefully on the ground and something shimmery catches my eyes in the distance. I move after it, it's faster than I thought it would. Not a wild animal from here but instead a very large wolf that my hand grabs a hold of.

I clutch its tail, making it stumble to the ground while taking us both down into a roll. I end up on the wrong side though, but I know those gold eyes. _"Embry."_ I reach up, holding his face in my fingers with fur bristles between them. It's softer then I thought it would be, softer then Jakes. Even in this form he still looks lost.

"I'm leaving tomorrow." I blurt out, I have no idea why though I am telling him this. I'm sure he doesn't care. I watch him phase in my grip and it's beautiful.

"Don't go." He ask me, but part of me is scared on some weird level because those eyes are still gold and I remember what happened the last time when I saw them. It's more of a fear for survival though.

"Why are your eyes gold?" I ask him bravely.

"Because I have no one left to help calm the wolf inside me…. She was all I had …" And now I try to remember what empathy felt like and mimic it, for him.

"But when you kissed me they turned black." I ask him.

"You calm me in a twisted way … you can't go Bella because I am so tired of being angry all the time." He tells me and I get it because right I swear my heart just beat its first beat since I was changed.

"Okay." I tell him.

He brings his lips down on mine and I feel everything inside me like I once did when I was human. I roll us over and he grabs hold of my face, trying to bruise my lips as he kisses me harder. Pulling up, allowing him to breathe again he bits on my bottom lip and it's exquisite.

I look back down. "Black as midnight." I tell him.

"And you?" He asks me.

"I feel human." And he smiles at me.

Funny my second chance at love is with a wolf. I alone calm his beast and he alone makes me remember what I once was.

* * *

**Quick Note: I will continue this with one final installment, Black Sound that will give Jacob his HEA for my fellow Jacob lovers.**


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